The Reunion
by giftofamber
Summary: Emma has been avoiding Regina since she came back from New York. An alternate 3b opening.


Late one evening, Emma Swan found herself knocking on the door to the mayor's mansion. She didn't know why she was there—it was as if her car had driven on automatic with no guidance from the driver. She'd avoided Regina since she had returned to Storybrooke—what was she supposed to say—thank you for the memories? She would inevitably become emotional, and if there was one thing Emma Swan didn't deal with well, it was emotions.

Yet, here she was, knocking on Regina's door, as if the time of night had eroded her ability to evade the flame that was Regina Mills. When no response was forthcoming, she sighed and put her hands in her pockets. She turned and began to walk back to her trusty yellow Bug when she heard the heavy door creak open. The voice that followed was a welcome one, although she wasn't about to admit it to anyone, including herself.

"Emma…what are you doing here? Is Henry alright?" Regina asked, her voice devoid of emotion. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, her hair was a disheveled mess, and in spite of the beautiful silk negligee and matching robe, she looked like hell. The crazy thing was, she didn't care. She couldn't think beyond the blank look in Henry's eyes. Her own son thought she was a perfect stranger.

She hadn't expected anyone to come calling on her. No one ever did, except the irritating blonde standing in front of her. The one and only Emma Swan, the woman who her son called 'mother,' and she had no one to blame but herself. She was the one who had made her own son forget her, for what she believed to be his own good since she had thought he would never see her again, and she had known it would hurt, but she hadn't realized quite how much. No amount of tears dulled the pain in her soul.

Emma took in the view before her and found herself stuttering, "Regina, I…I…"

"Out with it," Regina's patience was waning fast, not that she had much to begin with.

"I just….Henry's fine. He's with David because I had to work late. Regina, are you ok?" Emma couldn't help, but be worried. Here was a woman who had survived weeks in the forest with her worst enemies and her son in peril, but still had not a hair out of place. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Letting her eyes fall to the floor, Regina didn't even have the strength to pretend to be her normal snarky, put-together self. She answered, "I was having trouble sleeping."

"Oh…I won't bother you then. It was a mistake to come here," Emma babbled. Her confidence was declining by the second.

"Yeah, well, you're here, so come inside, and I'll make us both some hot chocolate," Regina said, not quite ready to let Emma escape. As irritating as Emma could be, the silent house was worse. Even though it had been several years since Henry had lived with her full time, she still expected to hear the sound of his footsteps scrambling up the stairs and to find his toys strewn about the house. The silence was a bitter reminder that her son no longer remembered her, and she was glad for a distraction.

Watching Regina putter around in the kitchen, Emma commented, "You always were the better cook."

"Cooking takes practice, dear, and motivation," Regina preened. "Not to mention a decade of feeding a growing boy, who is a very picky eater."

Nodding, Emma agreed with Regina's assessment of their son, "He was an incredibly picky eater. I always had to disguise his vegetables…"

"By cutting them into fun shapes," Regina finished. She supposed this was one of the benefits of giving Emma her memories of raising Henry. She now had someone to talk to who understood just how hard it was to be a single mother.

"Yeah, I guess that was you, and not me, wasn't it. I mean, I know that those memories aren't real, but I forget sometimes," Emma admitted, shoving her hands in her back pockets.

"You don't need to apologize, Emma. It was my choice to give you those memories," Regina stated. "I only wish I had been able to go with you both."

"If we'd had more time, we'd have come up with a way," Emma said sadly. "I hate to think what you went through—a whole year without your son, stuck with the people you hated most in the world."

"It's a good thing, then, that I don't remember any of it," Regina said, fighting a smile. Emma was the only one who had ever tried to empathize with her.

Moving a little closer, Emma promised, "We'll find a way for Henry to remember you and get your memories back and break this stupid curse. I am the Savior after all."

Emma wasn't quite sure when or how it happened, but she had her hand resting on Regina's shoulder, and they were standing a hairsbreadth apart. Her eyes naturally flickered down to Regina's lips, wondering how they would taste and how they would feel. She subconsciously licked her own lips in anticipation, knowing she should back away, yet her feet were frozen to the floor.

Noticing Emma's visual cues, Regina knew she would have to make the first move. She leaned to her right, pulling Emma in for a soft kiss. Such tender contact was foreign to the both of them, and Emma found herself prolonging the affectionate nibbling until she needed to take a breath. A shiver ran through Emma's body straight to her heart, igniting a small white light that grew until it encompassed both women. She recognized the warmth as the energy she had felt when she had broken the first curse and when she had kept Cora from removing her heart from her chest. Her magic had a will of its own and entwined itself with the purple of Regina's magic, forcing the color to turn lighter and lighter. Her stomach was in knots, and she backed away in wonder, overwhelmed by the realization that Regina was her….

"True love," Regina whispered, looking back at Emma with the same starstruck surprise. She hadn't thought that she would ever experience True Love in the romantic sense. Not that it didn't exist, but it didn't exist for her. Was it because she was trying so hard to change? To be a better person? Or was it always there between herself and Emma, and she had just been too blind to see it? Images flashed before her eyes, of Emma coming back for her during the fire, untying her after fighting a dragon, fighting her way through an angry mob, and opening a portal to another realm by touching her arm. One of these instances would have been attributed to chance, two of them mere coincidence, but the sheer number of instances was resembling a pattern that was impossible to ignore.

Shaking slightly, Emma asked, "Your memories of the last year? Did they return?"

"It doesn't quite work like that. Each curse has a prophesied True Love's kiss that will break it—it can't just be any two people who are in True Love," Regina answered. "Just like Snow and Charming wouldn't have been able to break my curse when it was you who was the Savior."

"So we could have True Love's kiss all night, and it wouldn't do anything?" Emma asked incredulously.

Regina smirked, "I wouldn't say that. Your kiss has certainly affected me."

"Really?"

Regina paused for a moment, plunged her hand into her chest, and pulled her beating heart out to show Emma. Even though she was supposed to be demonstrating for Emma's sake, she couldn't help but stare herself as her previously blackened heart had become bright red with only a few black spots remaining. She spoke aloud, "When your magic entwined with mine, you helped to break the hold the Dark One had on my heart."

"I did?"

"Yes, Emma, you did."

"Ok, can you put that thing back in your chest now? It's a little creepy," Emma admitted. She was still getting used to the whole magic thing, but even still, she liked internal organs being on the inside where they belonged.

Obliging, Regina put her heart in its proper place, but she couldn't help teasing, "Maybe I should show you what yours looks like."

"Well, you can't," Emma said smirking.

"Oh, I can't?"

Emma grinned, "No, your mother already tried. You should've seen how pissed she was."

A flicker of fear went through Regina's eyes, causing her to give Emma a shove, "Don't you even dare joke about that. She could have killed you."

"But she didn't," Emma reassured her. "What kind of product of true love would I be if she could kill me just like that?"

"That's not her only trick, you know," Regina said, her tone grave and haunted.

Putting both arms around Regina, Emma answered, "Oh, I know. She had this glamour thing that made her look like different people. Very creepy. And so not the discussion I want to be having with a beautiful woman right now."

Hesitating before her next question, Regina took a deep breath and inquired, "I know this is asking a lot, and you can say no, but would you stay with me, at least until I fall asleep?"

"Of course. And I'll even behave as the perfect gentlewoman," Emma answered, still floored that Regina had asked for help.

"You don't have to go that far," Regina said, pointedly admiring Emma's firm biceps. "It's just every time I close my eyes I see Henry's face, and with you here, I feel hopeful, like he'll finally see the truth."

"The truth that his biological mother has the most attractive true love in all of Storybrooke, Maine," Emma grinned. "He'll accept you as his mother, even without his memories, just because you make me happy."

"Who knew the Savior was a hopeless romantic? I thought you were as jaded as I was," Regina smirked, making sure the stove was off before dragging Emma up the stairs to the master bedroom.

When they arrived, Emma looked around. This was her first time inside Regina's bedroom, and she had expected everything to be orderly and in place. She knew how Regina hated clutter, at least under normal circumstances, so she was surprised to see how the room in many ways resembled her own area of the loft. The covers on Regina's bed were rumpled, and there were pictures strewn everywhere on the bed. Pictures of Henry, Regina with baby Henry, even a few with Emma and Henry spoke to the difficulty that Regina had been having of late.

As if she had noticed Emma's gaze, Regina began picking up the pictures and moved them to the night table. She apologized, "As you can see, I wasn't expecting company."

Tears threatened to fall from Emma's face, but only made it as far as wet spots on the corners of her eyelids. Was this what it was like to have a family? To have people who needed her? To have people who were lost and miserable when she wasn't by their side? Overwhelmed by her thoughts, she leaned over to communicate both love and comfort in a kiss.

Once she had started, she couldn't stop with just one, and the kisses grew frantic and desperate as she clung to Regina and promised wordlessly that she would never let her go. Her vulnerability shone through as she caressed soft skin and smooth curves. She let down her walls and let Regina see her as no one else had—the little girl broken and desperate for a home and a family. She started to pull away, remembering her earlier promise, but a 'don't stop' from Regina was all it took for clothes to start flying in their shared need for skin-to-skin contact.

This wasn't how either of them had imagined their first time together, but reality was often very different from fantasy. There were no roses or candles—those could always be saved for another time—just two broken women seeking solace in each other's arms. As the friction pushed their bodies beyond their limits, their souls touched and soothed the dull ache that had haunted them both throughout their lives. A bystander would not be able to tell where one woman ended and the other began because they were now forever connected beyond the physical in the bonds of true love.

Sweat glistened off of them both as they held each other, and Regina went in for yet another brief kiss before settling against Emma's chest to fall asleep. She didn't need to speak; she just knew that Emma would be there when she woke up in the morning to hold her and keep her safe. She just knew, not because Emma was good, but because Emma was hers.


End file.
